While the “Trump trade” has roiled the bond markets and led to a big jump for sectors like financials based on policy outlooks, let’s not forget the American consumer isn’t going to wait until after Inauguration Day in 2017.

Holiday spending trends matter. And right now they aren’t quite as rosy as some had hoped.

All that could result in a rough fourth quarter for retailers as a group, but there are some bright spots amid these challenges.

Here are five names I think will cash in both this December and into 2017 thanks to their strong consumer-driven businesses.

Foot Locker

Foot Locker Inc.
FL, +0.52%
is an anomaly among specialty retailers in that its top line, bottom line and share price have been moving in a nearly constant upward trajectory over the past five years. In the age of e-commerce and chronic retail bankruptcies, that’s quite a feat for a mostly brick-and-mortar shoe store.

As a rule, I tend to dismiss mall retail names like this out of hand. But with revenue growth averaging nearly 25% annually over the past five years coupled with a forward price-to-earnings ratio of less than 14 right now, it’s hard to lump this stock in with the other battered names in retail.

If you’re an old-school investor who still thinks it’s only rich housewives spending their afternoons trying on expensive shoes, it’s time to get with the times and take a closer look at Foot Locker. The company posted impressive earnings again in November, and is on pace for double-digit profit growth this year and a strong showing again in 2017.

Costco

Big-box giant Costco Wholesale Corp.
COST, -1.26%
admittedly hasn’t done very well in 2016, with shares down about 6% on the year. However, it remains the very best defensive investment in retail thanks to its low-cost focus and steady cash flow generated by membership dues.

As of the latest 10-K filed in October, Costco boasts nearly 87 million card-holding members paying roughly $55 a pop. Furthermore, roughly nine in 10 cardholders renew each year, making this $4.7 billion revenue stream a reliable foundation for the company.

Bigger-picture, Costco continues to show it has tremendous long-term value as one of the best-run retail outfits out there. Despite recent underperformance, the stock is up about 180% in the past 10 years vs. just 57% for the S&P 500
SPX, -0.55%
and about 50% for fellow big-box retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc
WMT, -2.75%
in the same period.

Some of the underperformance lately has been deserved, thanks to an elevated forward P/E of about 23 even after its modest decline in 2016. But I still think Costco is a rare bright spot in retail, tracking 7% top-line growth in FY2016 and another 7% in FY2017 to boot. What’s more, profits will jump 11% this year and 10% in 2017.

Mattel

Mattel Inc.
MAT, +3.34%
is in the middle of what seems to be a successful turnaround plan and shares are up about 30% year-to-date as a result.

But that momentum is only the beginning of what investors should be interested in, and one of the biggest factors I like in Mattel right now is its juicy dividend of 4.8%.

You may be surprised to find that a toy company is such a big dividend payer. But while Mattel began paying regular dividends only back in 2011, it has boosted payouts 65% in just five years to prove it’s serious about sharing profits with shareholders. While there’s not much headroom left with distributions set to be 85% of total earnings in fiscal 2017, remember that this company is on the mend and is expecting to see profitability improve slowly but steadily over time.

Bears may remember the stock fell on hard times in 2014 and 2015; it plummeted over 50% peak-to-trough. That was in large part because its biggest brands, such as Barbie and Fisher-Price, fell out of favor — and because it lost the right to license Walt Disney Co.
DIS, -0.88%
princess toys.

However, Mattel implemented aggressive cost-cutting measures and its turnaround appears to be taking shape quickly. In fact, with new products in the pipeline, Christmas could be very strong for the company, so you may not have to wait long to see a strong return on your investment in the stock.

Amazon

Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN, +0.99%
has kind of been in a lull since September, driven in part by a weaker-than-expected third-quarter earnings report. But don’t let these weeks fool you. The stock is still a consistent outperformer, up 13% year-to-date vs. 7% for the S&P 500 and up 320% in the last five years vs. 90% for the index in the same period.

Long-term investors in this stock should know by now that Jeff Bezos & Co. are unconcerned with managing quarter-to-quarter and are instead focused on success that lasts. Just take the recent success of Amazon’s voice-controlled digital assistant Alexa. The software has gotten rave reviews and resulted in estimated sales of some 5 million Echo smart speakers in the past two years, taking the technology mainstream.

That’s the kind of innovation we used to expect only from Apple Inc.
AAPL, -0.45%
And not only has it opened up a new market for Amazon, it also has made it much easier for the company to gather data on its best customers and enable e-commerce transactions to take place in just seconds regardless of whether a laptop or mobile device is within reach.

Speaking of supporting its e-commerce universe, remember that Amazon has the same reliable revenue from membership dues as the aforementioned Costco. With an estimated 65 million Prime members paying $99 annually, that’s more than $6.4 billion in revenues — and with one research firm estimating a staggering 30% of Prime members are ordering from Amazon on a weekly basis, it’s hard to imagine any other retail name clawing share away from this company in the near future.

The high-growth cloud arm of Amazon Web Services gets all the hype, and undoubtedly a lot of recent momentum in the stock is a result of AWS. But Amazon is still a consumer powerhouse, and one worth owning right now.

Visa

Visa Inc.
V, -1.29%
may sound like more of a financial stock since you find its logo on all your credit and debit cards. But it’s not a lender, it’s a payment services company. Think of Visa as a toll-taker of sorts that shaves a penny or two off every transaction in exchange for facilitating payment between businesses and consumers.

Visa is at the center of a massive growth industry via innovations in mobile payments and cashless transactions. As the world’s largest payment processor, Visa is sitting on a big market share with a valuable brand presence, so it remains one of the early favorites in this emerging field.

The growth story is already very clear in the top-line performance of Visa over the past five years, where revenue has grown at a 17% annual rate. Earnings continue to soar as well, with EPS set to surge fourfold from five years ago, from 79 cents in 2012 to a projected $3.84 in fiscal 2017. In the immediate-term, year-over-year growth is set to hit 10% on revenue from FY2016 to FY2017 and EPS should grow 17%.

In the third quarter, Visa earnings surged 27% thanks in part to the acquisition of previously independent business Visa Europe as well as continued growth from global payment volume, including a 36% improvement in international transaction revenue.

This company clearly is at the center of mobile payments in every corner of the globe and is a great play for 2017 and beyond.

Jeff Reeves doesn’t own any shares of companies mentioned in this column.

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